


Chronic

by aqhrodites



Series: The Clock Opera [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Companion Piece, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Rare Pairings, Romance, Soulmate marks, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Clock Opera, The Clock Opera AU, kira has lots of decisions to make, kira is likely the most calmest with this whole situation aside from Lydia of course, lots of contradictions to consider, lots of pining, she's probably the most level-headed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aqhrodites/pseuds/aqhrodites
Summary: It happened on her first day of history class.There's a cute guy in Kira's class. Her neck rubber-bands for second glances whenever he passes, her chest clenching with anxiety. He's a boy who is lean and lively. He's overzealous, highlighter on his fingers, and never seems to have a pen when needs it. He's sandpapered edges and coffee brown hair and skin stars. He's the first to talk to her in class—albeit because he misplaced his pen.Kira rubs her mark as she watches Skin-stars and his friend, watching from their lockers sometimes in the morning. But she gravitates toward Scott instead because he's ice block cool, sun-kissed and he's gentle; he's safe and what she needs. Because she knows who the owner of her mark is, and every time he's near her knees weaken, and the world slows while it simultaneously collapses and it'smarvelous.Kira knows the owner of her mark and he's deranged, intangible. She knows the owner of her mark and because of this, they can never be together.And throughout all of this time, Kira doesn't tell.It starts with a secret.Kira has always hated secrets. They never last long.





	Chronic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyGemini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGemini/gifts).



> I tried to describe a coming of age ceremony of mixed cultures, but as I am not Korean or Japanese myself, if I’ve made any mistakes please shoot me a message.

 

* * *

**###**

_focus / blur_

_I._

Kira gets her mark at six.

It had been partially cloudy that day, and she had just gotten her first "boyfriend," as she called him, was allowed to watch her favorite Disney movie and have her favorite dessert after dinner. And crawling into bed, her father had read to her before bed this time—her favorite book about a mischievous mouse wanting a cookie—and the whole day had been just _great!  
_

She awakes screaming that night, startling her parents out of bed in the early morning to come running and see their little girl with tears streaming down her face and writhing in pain.

" _It burns! It burns!"_

They see that she's holding her slightly chubby left bicep, just above her elbow. Minutes later, a throbbing little reddened symbol could be seen stamped into her milky skin.

Her father turns on the bedside lamp as her mother cradles Kira in her lap, the girl still weeping. The mark is a three sectioned box underneath an accent mark, they see, something Kira could fit on all three of her little fingers. She thinks it looks like a three-drawer dresser.

The next day Kira wants to skip school. Her father sticks a Band-Aid to the back of her arm and presses a kiss to the covered scar as he carries her Hello Kitty book bag on one shoulder. She isn't allowed to miss school, wipes her tears, and puts on a brave face.

* * *

 There's a celebration thrown four weeks later arranged by her mother. Kira's relatives flood into their little home baring flowers, perfume, and gifts, and taking up all the seating places and lawn room. Kira is dressed in a hanbok, pinned because she hasn't yet grown into it fully. A related elderly pinches her cheeks. She posses for family pictures. She's offered treats and sweets, anything she desires.

This spontaneous celebration is for her.

More precisely, it's for her scar.

Her _mark_.

 _"This is very important,"_ an aunt tells her and Kira's mother, Noshiko, looks on, fondly. _"I'm so blessed to be able to see her take this milestone. This is a very wonderful occasion."_

 _"It doesn't feel wonderful,"_ Kira speaks and her mother pinches her unmarked arm in punishment.

A celebration is thrown for Kira as it nears her seventh birthday—a sort of coming-of-age, if you will, that's lumped together along with all of this. The dinner table is cluttered with rice cakes, noodle soup, sujunggwa, and the same skin lotion and bath crystals as her mother that Kira admired. And Kira is washed in cold water, per her mother's request who also gave her _omamori_ amulets, and charms written with _jusa_ to ward off misfortune and malevolent spirits are stuck all along the walls and one on Kira's forehead, and she's told to hold a set of beads in her hands. Kira is spoiled from sun up to sun down.

She doesn't need the Band-Aid anymore, and sometimes she rubs her tiny fingers over her mark, feeling the indent of the symbol in her skin, the redness and swelling having gone down by now. It's nude-colored and intricately, delicately carved into her ivory skin that she can only get a good glimpse of through a mirror.

Kira is given a celebration for this milestone she's just reached in life.

She couldn't care less about it.

* * *

 

_II._

When Kira is twelve, she's asked out on her first date by a boy who's favorite color is blue and who collects Jordan and Nike sneakers. His name had been David-something. He broke her heart by next year once getting his own mark that wasn't assigned to her.

* * *

 Noshiko has never liked any of Kira's boyfriends.

There was the first, David, that hadn't lasted more than a year anyway, but that isn't the point. Following, there had been the redhead Sam, a baseball player named Zach, and a Carlos, and Dante the aspiring singer. They were all either "not right." Or, "there's something fishy about him." Or, their dirty, deceptive little puberty-induced secret was found out before Kira knew.

She hasn't had many boyfriends—most had just been _not exactly official_ , anyway, but that wasn't important. _The mark_ is supposed to help you find your _one_ ; it's supposed to act as a sort of detector in a way. And Kira has seen it happen, the alleged magical strings of fate align firsthand. She's seen couples abruptly form in school hallways and in grocery store check-out lines. _The mark_ is supposed to buzz when you're near that special someone, whoever they may be. The invisible strings are said to tighten and jerk in unforgiving fascination toward the direction of your other.

And it sounds nice, in theory: Kira meets boys, dates a few, but there's always something that doesn't quite fit _right_ about them, and the emotions of infatuation dissolves in smoke.

At home, Kira twists her arm around to see her mark in the mirror, her reflection still hazy from condensation from a shower. She wonders why she has been given _this_ one. This specific shape, and if of any importance, in this specific location. She wonders what it means.

* * *

 

_III._

At sixteen, Kira and her family move to California when her father is given a new teaching job.

There had been the typical defiance the teen exempted, the panic and sorrow of knowing that she is going to lose all her friends and leave life as she knows it behind. She had just made the Honor Roll and was invited to a party in the next two weeks and now all the possible affects of these occasions will be lost down the gutter.

Kira groans and lets her forehead fall into her comforters. Her mother reassures that it will be for the best—of course Kira doesn't believe her. She hates change, and this is the worst kind. She had been just fine back at her old school where she knew people and was comfortable and she was adjusted. At this new California school, she's going to be the oddball out, the kooky new girl, and she's sure her father was going to embarrass her in some way or another.

Which he does.

"Morning everyone. My name is Mr. Yukimura, and I'll be taking over for your previous history teacher. My family and I moved here three weeks ago. I'm sure by now you all know my daughter, Kira. Or, you might not since she's never actually mentioned anyone from school...or brought home a friend for that matter."

And there is a large _thunk_ in the back of the classroom, Kira's forehead connecting loudly with her desk.

"Either way— _there_ she is."

* * *

 

_IV._

Beacon Hills High doesn't prove to be _too_ bad. The kids don't gawk at her, and there isn't much intimidating or peer pressure, and there isn't much holding her back from talking and speaking up except for her insecurities and second guessing, her lacking of self-confidence and social anxiety. Though, positively, there's some _cute_ guys here which she doesn't mind at all. Nor does she mind watching them practice out on the football or lacrosse field. In fact, they're in her father's history class—

There is one is in her father's history class.

Besides being the lone new girl and struggling to make friends, one of Kira's conflicting hindrances is that the mark on the back of her upper left bicep hasn't stopped trembling, demanding, and making her want to _go_ , pulling her to hurry to some unknown location, to some ending point, to find some _person_. And it provides a _problem_ when she can't fully concentrate on her work, when she's daydreaming to waltz up to a random stranger like a lovelorn young schoolgirl.

No, not problem— _dilemma_. This is a terrible, crucial misfortune.

At first she thinks she knows what it meant, who her mark _could_ belong to—it had kept her from good night's rest since—and so when she finally voices it over dinner one night, she had only been hoping for validation, approval. She knows what _the mark_ means and what it is for anyway, her mother describing her own numerous ones that have been tattooed over, which are all now blackened and scabbed beneath.

Kira gives a vague disclosure that her mark is pointing to someone her father teaches. She doesn't tell anything else. Partially because she doesn't know _how_.

It happened on her first day of history class.

There is a cute guy in Kira's class who catches her attention. Her neck rubber-banding for second glances whenever he passes, her chest clenching with anxiety, suspense. He's a boy who is tall and lean and lively. He's overzealous, running on undying AA batteries, and highlighter marks staining his fingers. He has wristwatch alarms for the morning and he never seems to have a pen when needs it. He's sandpapered edges and coffee brown hair and skin stars. He was the first to talk to her in this class—albeit, because he misplaced his marker case—but there's no way it could be anything but arbitrary; it's no way it could be him. Because they exchanged names and bashful teenage smiles and it's far too picturesque. Even though, Kira's eyes light up. There is a comforting, blissful premonition of perpetuity and utter, complete entirety that courses through her, and it's then that she finally comprehends the words her mother explained about the fulfillment of finding your match. Even though it's too coincidental and identical to a romantic novel for her liking that it couldn't, mustn't be true.

And she thinks as much. Because when his friend enters, Skin-stars' affection is turned _off_ like a flip-switch—no hesitation and no second glances. It isn't him. It can't be. It isn't realistic and had only been wishful. Kira _knows_ it isn't real. Because she sees the way Skin-stars' attention rubber-bands to his friend, and then she sees the way he looks at that girl in his English class, the one with red hair and cherry lips.

She sees, and scratches at her mark, all of a sudden irksome and infuriated.

She's certain it wasn't real.

It couldn't be.

It wasn't him.

It can't.

Kira rubs a hand over her mark, an absentminded motion as she watches Skin-stars and his friend pass by in the halls, watches from her locker sometimes in the morning and from the back of her father's class. It isn't _on purpose_ that she just so happens to be in the same place as the two guys so much—this school isn't small and has many students so this could possibly be confused as unintended stalking, she thinks. She dreads. But that isn't the point! And neither is it helping her.

Kira goes to the library to research for a project...and hears whispering the next aisle over. Removing one of the encyclopedias, she spies Stiles Stilinski hissing urgently and wildly gesturing—he always gestures so animatedly, and she smiles because it's quite _cute_ , actually—to a voice that sounds like Scott's, the other's friend conjoined at the hip.

Stiles abruptly freezes, then his head snaps around. And Kira doesn't wait to see if he's spotted her, quickly reshelving the book and bucking out of the library. She's the new girl here and couldn't afford getting a terrible reputation already, especially one of being a Peeping Tom.

Her eyes squeeze shut. Her ears burn pink.

* * *

It isn't until after a particularly unstable dispute with her father during lunch does Kira finally muster enough courage to talk to the boy in her History class, the one which makes her mark buzz and beg and pull for the entire class period.

But the way she does it is...so... _Intrusive_.

"Hi! ...Hi, I couldn't help overhearing what you guys are talking about...and I think I—think I might actually know what you are talking about."

They're outside at a picnic table when Kira utters those words. All eyes turn to her and she immediately regrets it. Stiles gives her the most puzzled look, and she ignores her gut wrenching, the nervous heart-skip that _must_ be anxiety again.

Kira continues on anyway. "...It's a Tibetan word for it: _bardo_. It literally means in-between states. The state between life and death."

Lydia is the one to speak a response first, turning with the most patronizing forced-smile. "And what do they call _you_?"

"Kira," Scott answers for her.

All seem shocked that he knows.

Kira forces a smile. Her hands wonders to the mark barely covered by her shirt's sleeve. It's throbbing, inwardly pulsing. And it's funny—it's a coincidentally type of funny, because _of course_ , she thinks; _of course_ it is Scott, because her mark grows abuzz and _pulls_ and _guides_ whenever he's near. It's why he is the only one who seems to pay her any attention.

And the concept is perfect. It's storybook-like and lemonade cool and it's quite unreal, quite assuring, quite _impossible_ how easy this all has been for her—to move to a different town at the _perfect_ age of seventeen, and _poof!_ meets the love of her life.

It's pale incarnadine, impeccable, and it's implausible.

So, of course, she gravitates towards Scott McCall.

* * *

Regardless, Kira tends to stick to herself. She isn't the quickest to make friends and is even worse at determining her own resolutions. She eats in her father's classroom during lunch. She skips to go to the library. She doesn't participate in extracurricular activities or clubs or sports. Her stomach tangles and it _drops_ when she's in crowds of people, or at the center point of attention. When she arrives home, she finishes her homework, and sits at her computer. Sometimes she would run her fingers over her mark and think of nothing at all. Sometimes she'll think of everything in the world.

Her marks pulls and commands and _screams_.

When she's properly introduced, Scott is statuesque and inviting and his smile assuring. He's kind and attentive and chilverous and it's perfect. Too perfect.

She meets Scott McCall and thinks that maybe fairytale endings aren't so bad.

* * *

 

_V._

It starts with a secret.

The thing Kira has never been inept for is sealed lips. So when feelings became obvious between her and Scott, and despite he and Allison being "on a break," she so easily spilled her feelings to Lydia within a few pushed buttons because it's like a forbidden love—a white knight with his maiden lost at sea, the maiden taken by another man, and Kira is the siren who has distracted the knight from his objective. And Kira knows that she should feel guilty—and she does, in fact, she explains to Lydia in word-vomit—but Lydia wasn't helping. Instead, she advised Kira to be true and vocal, that she would come to fully regret it if she does not. It didn't ease the sickening guilt in her when Scott insists that he and Allison are _"_ _on break anyway"_ so she shouldn't think about it, and to find your, quoted, _other half_ isn't as simple as the bestsellers and sappy, cliche movies depict. It's filled with confusion and heartbreak and adversity.

And thus, feelings seeming reciprocated, Scott and Kira keep their mutual emotions hidden. Prohibited. Submerged. Secret.

But Kira doesn't do anything to further them, not wanting to be the knife forced into the raw wound of a breakup.

And she's too old to wear rose-colored lenses, she knows, but it's flawless and dreamlike and it's _perfect_. Because when Scott is near, there isn't a tug or an overbearing attraction or an ungiving magnetic connection as what she's been told since preschool. He's calm, collecting, and caring, and _cute_ , yes, but—there's a few problems with this whole situation.

One: that Scott already has a girlfriend. Well, _ex_ if being accurate—Allison Argent.

Two: that Scott _already has_ a soulmate—and it's Allison Argent. This is explained one night at a rave party in Derek's loft. Allison had been dancing with Isaac because they were supposed to be together; dancing with shirts off and a clear sheen of sweat beginning to form on their skin— _supposed to be_ because Scott isn't focused. He and Allison play tag with hidden glances and meaningful stares, and he inches increasingly closer. Kira isn't too disheartened because who is she to come between two who are meant to be?

Her pit-seed of guilt swells.

She asks about it when Scott opts for a selfie. He has an arm around her shoulders and the lights reflecting in neon blue, green, white, and red, and her stomach does contorts and twists. And it isn't love, she knows, she thinks, but it's something like it. He coxes her to "smile!," the flash turned on. Which brings on the rest of that contentious list:

Three: that Scott confirms that the "aura" seen in a selfie of hers resembles the outline of a fox. And Kira doesn't know what it means at first until her mother pulls her aside to explain that she is over _one hundred years old_ , that there are beings that are less fictional and more tangible, and that Kira is likely as immortal as her mother. Kira is told that she's a _kitsune_ , that she has a fox living _inside_ her, and she's dazed, dumbstruck, and terrified, honestly. Because she's "the new girl" at school and the boy she likes is a goddamn _werewolf_ whose mark on her skin isn't even _his_ ; there's a girl, Lydia, who is a little too in-tuned with the local murders; and and apparently Scott, Allison, and Stiles regularly hallucinate; and the _real_ owner of Kira's mark is—

The real owner of Kira's mark is—

Kira's mark is a small, nude-colored writing of "oneself" in Japanese Kanji on the back of her bicep.

The real owner of Kira's mark...

He doesn't have hers, she knows—no, she's _positive_. It's in the way of his opinions, his hand gestures, his gaze passing over her, and the priority Scott has made about her instead. It's in the sinking, almost nauseating seethe inside her when he's near. Of the formidable encouraging by the little indented symbol in her skin.

It's a skipping record player. A scratched CD replaying the same verse, replaying that's him, _it's him, it's him, it's him_ , and Kira's wearing sound-cancelling headphones triple-taped to her head.

However, she doesn't allow herself to think about it for two reasons: there are aspirating psychotics wearing silver masks hopping out from the shadows, leaving mysterious materializing tattoos behind people's ears, and she gets a vile, gut wrenching feeling whenever Stiles reappears in her peripheral vision to where she'll have to close her eyes and breath in, urge herself to not scream or shout and tackle him to the ground, and then to breath out. Increasingly, no matter how she doesn't want it to be, the local murders are seemingly connotating back towards Stiles. All the signs and occurrences point coincidentally back to him.

All of the signs and coincidences—

Kira knows her mark isn't Scott's, but she doesn't mind. He's congenial and he's charming and appreciative; he's lofty and ice block cool, and statuesque firm, and sun-kissed and he's gentle. Because he's safe and what she needs and an excellent diversion. Because she knows who the owner of her mark is, and every time she's near him, she feels her knees weaken, and an undeniable attraction and affinity, and the world slows while it simultaneously collapses and it's marvelous.

Because, fourth: she knows who's the owner of her mark and he's deranged, intangible. Because she knows the owner of her mark and because of this, they can never be together.

And throughout all of this time, Kira doesn't tell.

* * *

It starts with a secret.

Kira has always hated secrets.

They never last long.

* * *

 

_VI._

By the time Kira is sixteen, she's learned several things, creating a new list.

She's a thunder kitsune, Kira is told rather than discovering on her own. Her mother is a celestial kitsune. Her father, a history teacher and ordinary human. She's also told about the nogitsune, a dark kitsune that possesses and controls and destroys. One that takes and takes and takes until there is nothing left. It absorbs everything of its host, and once finished, leaves them all but a withered corpse.

She's told that Stiles is the victim this century, history mimicking itself.

She and Scott watch him go from a shining star to an exploding sun, detonating shambolically, violently, volatile.

Stiles looses his mind, panics. He's locked in a mental institute, strapped to a chair, and poisoned. Every time a needle is forced into his neck—meaning for the obsessive fox demon dominating his mind—Kira's chest tightens and her heart races and she grows fearful, unappeasably angry, and a little more sick in the stomach.

It's like a bad dream: her accidentally, unintentionally kick-starting a demon inside an innocent classmate with causing a power outage, discovering her own abilities, then having to experience all of his excruciating pain secondhand, only to have her mark burn and buzz more violently then ever.

It's a horrifying ordeal. A nightmare. A bad dream they all wish they could wake up from.

It's disconcerting. It's disheartening. It's unpredictable. It's—

* * *

Stiles Stilinski is scheduled to die in a month. Two, maybe three more if the treatments are successful. He's to suffer from a type of dementia, Scott explains to the group at his dinner table. Kira sinks lower in the chair. Lydia comments that she's been looking a bit blue recently, and suggests eating more leafy greens.

Kira cries that night.

For the first time in her life, she feels utter, bone-chilling fear and anguish, the deep rooting kind that grips and paralyzes and you begin hoping that that there is a God. For the first time, her mark stings iron hot, as if needles are being injected all along its outline. In the darkness of her room, it begins to darken and callus over like a healing burn wound.

* * *

When Scott and Lydia successfully bring Stiles back and separate him from the Nogitsune, Kira wants to skip with joy.

It's short-lived, however, by the death of Allison.

* * *

Kira doesn't interact with either Stiles or Scott for three weeks.

There's a funeral. It's open casket. The color theme is sage green with white iris flowers.

She's invited to attend. She shows up for moral support.

Scott and Mr. Argent arrive in sunglasses. Lydia comes barefaced of any makeup, eyes red and puffy. They don't leave the sides of their loved ones. Isaac and Stiles bow their heads respectively, constantly wiping their eyes. Malia hasn't come; no one mentions it. Kira pays her respects, places a white iris on the sleek black casket before it's lowered into the ground.

Mr. Argent leaves before they do.

Scott raises his head to the sky. The sunglasses do not hide the wet tracks coursing down his cheeks.

* * *

When they return to school, they all keep their distance out of grief.

Malia has started at Beacon Hills High and she begins to gravitate toward Kira. But then she finds out that Malia starts dating Stiles, and so Kira distances herself.

* * *

When wounds have healed and she meets back up with them, she and Scott begin a relationship.

Sixth months into it, they come to a mutual breakup.

It's one night on a date. He had put his arm around her shoulders. Kira guesses that she shouldn't have worn that thin shirt, because then he wouldn't have felt the faint indent in her skin.

Its isn't brought up again until in the back of Stiles' Jeep.

Stiles gone, Scott asks why it's been until now that her mark has come into question. And since so, asks an affirmation that it must not be his.

She responds with a questioning about when his new mark appeared, the small leaf inside the crook of his arm.

Scott goes quiet.

* * *

 

_VII._

It starts as a secret.

Stolen glances in the walkway. Tongue-tied and starry-eyed within vicinity.

He wears a twitching, subtle smile for her. She's learned to look the other way.

He double texts, triple texts, and looks like a kicked puppy when she turns down his invitation to join for the viewing of a new movie. She refuses to be anyone's second or third choice. She states that she as something of importance to attend to that evening instead. When asked, she doesn't tell for what.

When he asks Kira about her mark, she brushes him off with short answers that run in circles. He mentions that he has one too. She speaks with a smile, "that's nice...good or you."

It starts with wild gestures and thinly veiled hints. Hushed confessions whispered under lornful breaths. It's instantly cleared schedules and sudden inability to complete one's homework. It's becoming a teacher's pet to her father, and being the first to wish her happy birthday, worming his way in and always doubling back, popping up, arriving _uninvited_. It's giving his umbrella up during a downpour but Kira revealing that she has her own.

She covers her mark with her sleeves, and at times, forgets that it's there. She ignores that it's there, the palpitate of her inverted tattoo that some call _destiny_ but she just thinks of a hindrance, a heartbreak.

Kira sees students in the hallways at school—arms hooked around elbows and snaking around hips. Some are wanting to issue a ban on PDA. She sees Liam arguing with a girl, Hayden, at the lockers; the boy continuously scratching at an irritation on his upper stomach. She's seen the other new member, Mason, and the undeniable heart eyes he gives at a lacrosse game. During such games, Kira hears Malia cheer from the bleachers, and she no longer has the sickening, gut wrenching heartache knowing _who_ specifically Malia is cheering for. It doesn't bother her anymore. She doesn't let it bother her.

However—

What _does_ is the slight, provoking pulsing of her mark when the ball is thrown in the air and teammates shout at her to make a move, shoot a goal, run in the _opposite_ direction she instinctively wants to. What bothers her is that she has a soulmate— _hopes_ that she does—and has grown so tired of the despairing twisting feeling of lovelorn that she wouldn't allow herself to notice.

She doesn't notice.

Kira wonders, a copper coil tightening around her because her soulmate—

He speaks too fast, double speaks, and trips gracelessly over his own feet. He'll run up to her in the hallway then have to create a random excuse as to why. He makes many excuses. Most pulled out of thin air and after brittle attempts at what Kira _guesses_ is flirting. His shameless smiles that grow guilty, and him always _having something to tell her_ , nothing coming out, and then awkwardly changing the subject.

And then he starts to hug her, and she's _really_ weirded out.

A month and a half passes. She watches as Malia and Scott gravitate and mesh and even fucking _synchronize_ together.

Three months later, Stiles shows Kira his matching mark.

* * *

 

_VIII._

When Kira turns seventeen, she learns that foxes come in twos.

They're never too far apart and always find each other.

They share drinks like couples in sappy, three star rated movies, and texting until three in the morning. They leave kisses on palms, indented marks vibrant and there's a molten salutary warmth gathering in stomachs. Kisses left down her neck and arching back. Of pink lip stains on folded note paper, left on his cheek before an exam and for good luck. Exchange sweaters. Hand holding. Shameless _remind me_ notes written in glitter gel pens on skin. Swapping novels. Of trading hats and scarves when it's winter. Of movie nights in the back of his Jeep and dosing asleep until the next morning. Of locker spilling out flowers when asked to prom.

Stiles has snuck through Kira's bedroom window a few times. Several times. More times than he would likely admit. But it's worth it, he thinks, when he's grabbed by the collar by Mr. Ken Yukimura, making him promise that he won't tell his wife if Stiles doesn't return this way. Shaking in the knees, his only option is to agree.

Stiles waits two weeks before doing it again.

Foxes compliment each other, a balancing blend of optimism and ebbing cynicism. They entwine their tails together, lace their finger in public, even create _pet names_ , and are undeniably _gross_ that add to it all—

However.

Sometimes, one fox has to go away for a time, leaving the other alone.

When Kira leaves per her deal with The Skinwalkers, a small part of her is left behind. A cavity of yearning rips open her gut. Her mark's trembling increases with each parting step she takes. She says that she'll be back, but to not wait for her.

Stiles marks that departure date every year on his calendar.

Before the group of friends knows it, three years have already gone by.

To Stiles, it feels like an eternity.

He waits anyway.

* * *

 

_[ final ]_

It's over ten years later as Scott paces out in the hospital waiting room. His enhanced hearing allowing him to hear the shouts and groans coming from inside the maternity ward.

There is an older man sitting beside the chair Scott once occupied. He lets out a light chuckle.

"First kid?" Lines frame the edges of his grin and crowfeet around his eyes.

Scott stops. He fidgets. Wipes his hands on his dark jeans. Cracks his knuckles. The small jewel on his fourth finger twinkles under the hospital florescent lights. "Uh—no. Not mine. Not this time," and he gives a dry, curt chuckle, realizes his words, and backtracks. It spills out frantically and undignified. "No, I—I mean—she's not my—my _wife_ , I just—"

The man nods, smiling wider. "Well congratulations anyway. A new life is always a blessing."

Scott relaxes. Asks, "what are you here for?"

Another shout reaches the waiting area. This time it wasn't Scott's party.

"First grandchild," the man answers.

Scott's eyes widen and gives a wide gesture with his hand. "Wow! Congratulations!"

"Have any kids yourself?"

Scott shakes his head. "No. Work, and all, you know. My fiancé—she doesn't like children. In fact, she's afraid of them..."

The older man nods, understanding.

Scott bounces a foot. Fidgets more. Crosses his arms.

In the chair beside Scott's now-empty one, a young boy sits with his head propped up by an arm, lightly snoring.

Ken Yukimura and Noah Stilinski are returning from the hospital's cafeteria. Noshiko waits beside the closes hospital room door in case she's needed for assistance. There are deep set wrinkles between her brows.

* * *

Kira's eyes flicker a faint orange, her head falling back to the pillow, and she emits another cry. The monitor's beeping peak as her pulse rises and drops dramatically. Malia is standing on her right and clutching Kira's hand. The werecoyote is still wearing a mixture of disgust and incredulity when Kira grips tighter.

" _Where's Lydia_ ," she forces between gritted teeth before another wave of pain crashes over her, the nurse then ordering her to _not stop! Don't stop!_

"She said she's on her way!" Malia swallows, glances nervously at the nurse between Kira's legs, casts her eyes down.

" _You said that an hour ago!_ "

"Well! Well—I'm sorry! I can't make her _poof_ here, now can I, Kira?"

Tiny shocks of electricity shoot from the kitsune's hands. Malia flinches, bracing herself and trying to take some of Kira's pain away. At the left side of the bed, Kira is clutching Stiles' hands in a death grip. After the first shocks of electricity given during her first contractions, he now wears electrical safety gloves that don't help with preventing the broken hand bones he likely has now.

Sweat has begun to form on his forehead from the pain of his hands. Amidst the chaos, the sound of a phone vibrating can be faintly heard. Melissa McCall is patrolling the room. A second maternity nurse surveys the birth.

"It's going to be al—alright, Kit. Ly— _Lydiaaa said_ —" He breaks off as she squeezes his hands in another death grip. "—Called and said that she's on her way. Kira. Kira, please...!"

Another lick of electricity shoots from her fingers into his glove.

" _You're lying! You didn't pick up your phone!_ " she hollers.

"I'm not—I'm sorry. Sweetie. Honey. _Please_. Please, you need to stay calm and focus. Calm down. Lydia is coming—"

" _Don't_ you dare tell me to calm!" Her eyes flash orange, and he hushes up with a submissive, whimpered, _"yes_ _ma'am."_ She grips tighter, face contorting in agony. " _You're_ the cause of this~!"

The monitors fizz and crackle from the abnormal electrical surges.

Melissa coaches Kira to breath and to focus, breath and focus, breath and _push_ , breath and _push_ , to focus, breath and—

Kira's irises are still glowing orange and her hands still discharging faint licks of electricity when the nurse lifts a tiny, squirming body into the air.

Malia heaves in relief.

"Congratulations," she says in the warmest approximation she can muster, lined with subtle relief. "It's a girl!"

Kira releases Stiles' hand with a small squeeze, continues to heave for breath. The second maternity nurse carefully and wraps the tiny, squirming human in the blanket. Malia's nose wrinkles at the scent of blood. To her, the baby looks objectively terrible—bloody and covered in bodily fluids and the infant's face is scrunched up as if in annoyance, as if in discontent, irrational intolerance, and her screams are high pitched and shrill, akin to nails on chalkboard, a knife across glass, bone chilling. Malia squeezes her eyes shut, asks Kira if could let go of her hand now, and the other looks as if she's ready to scream at any moment.

The nurse lifts her head from between Kira's knees just as she cries out again.

"The other one is coming!"

Malia's neck whiplashes. "Wait—wo—a—another one?!"

" _Yes_ , Malia. We told you this a _long_ time ago," Stiles replies in haste.

Kira screams. She rhythmically breaths and pushes on command, squeezes Malia's hand in a death grip, breaks Stiles'.

The second baby is a boy and he's born completely silent. Kira knows, instinctively, that something is wrong before the nurses carry the baby away to another room. Kira protests even after the nurse leaves. Melissa remains at her side. Stiles hurries after the nurses, gets shut out a FACULTY ONLY room, and peers through the window at a trio of nurses crowding around, at having to pry the infant's little mouth open, and then there's wires and machines wheeled closer. Inside, there is intense fraught and panic.

Out in the waiting area, Scott hears only one newborn's cry followed Kira's frantic objections, and is able too put two together. Luckily, seconds later, another wail sounds in the hospital. Mr. Yukimura and Mr. Stilinski return, handing Scott a pre-made turkey club from the deli. He informs them of what he had heard.

When the nurses return to the maternity room, Kira jerks forward, her face glowing from a recent cry.

The bulbs inside the lamps have all exploded. Melissa leaves.

Malia is sitting one of the single guest chairs, texting on her cellphone. Her head snaps up to attention when they enter, then widen as each nurse show a smile.

Stiles is nursing his likely broken hand beside his wife.

The nurses approach the bed, each carrying a different colored swaddled blanket. The room erupts with the emotion of relief; Malia thinks the two are near crying when the tiny bundles are placed in Kira's arms. But she can't help but look, ease closer, stare and _gawk_ at the newborns. To her, they look pudgier and pinker than the Google Search images—Malia had never seen a human infant up close like this, and she feels deceived by the images she looked up, disorded, and contradicted. She leans over the iron railing, moving her nose closer, can see the dried fluids flaking their light skin. She sniffs.

Stiles presses a series of kisses into Kira's hair. "You did it," he whispers in her ear, kisses her cheeks, her eyebrow, her hairline. His nose holds a tinge of red.

The boy squirms. Stiles gently tugs away the blanket so Malia can have a look. The girl flinches in her sleep, sticks out a fat pink tongue; Stiles kisses her forehead. Both already have a thin layer of hair on their little heads that, without the coded blankets, would make it impossible to tell them apart.

Kira's grins and turns her face to meet her husband's. "Well, you helped. A little."

"Yeah, but you did all the heavy work."

By now, Malia is staring intently in the sleeping boy's face. Gives another sniff. Notices his thick eyelashes, that he has a small patch of black moles on his left cheek. Gives another sniff, finds herself growing accustomed to this new-baby smell.

Kira is the one who notices Malia's entranced head tilt. So, grinning, asks, "you wanna hold one of them?" She ignores Stiles' objecting, _"uh, not before me she's not_. _"_

Malia's doe eyes widen, she straightens, looks taken aback, and steps away from the bed railing. Her hands fly up in defense. "No," she repeats, nervous. "No. No, no, no, no. I can't. Kids don't like me, remember? I'm not good with them. They're going to cry _immediately_. And you don't want that."

Kira bounces the one in pink. "No, I doubt it." Kisses her tiny forehead. She doesn't move. "They're completely asleep."

Still, Malia shakes her head, refusing. Backs up to the empty chairs in the room.

One of the nurses asks Stiles about the hand he's still tending.

The couple is given a twin each to hold.

Malia excuses herself to the hallway to dial Lydia's number and to give the new parents privacy. Hearing a ringtone go off in the waiting area as hers ring, Malia follows it, where she finds Lydia conversing with Scott, her fuchsia colored phone jiggles in her hand, one heeled foot _tap-tap-tapping_. She's wearing lipstick that matches her phone case color. She tells that she's "been here for all of ten minutes and _no one_ has answered their phone! And I had this—this _sickening_ feeling that was _that_ feeling, and I thought it had to do with...them. How are they," she asks Malia. "How did it go?"

The werecoyote tells that they are fine and that the parents are having appropriate time with the twins.

Lydia exhales relief.

Malia's gaze is dazed. She spaces out. Fiddles with her own cellphone. Smacks it against her open palm. Slides her fingers across it, paying attention to the grooves and sleek plastic. Then, musing in a low tone, "they were so tiny..."

Scott vaguely squints.

Lydia doesn't hear and steps to Malia, pulling the werecoyote back. "Well," she begins removing her jacket. "She's been blowing up my phone all this time. And I'm here now. She better be ready for me." And she strides to the maternity room.

Minutes after Lydia enters and begin cooing over the twins, Melissa knocks, returning with Noah Stilinski in tears and Noshiko striding past everyone to "need to see her grandchildren! This is a once in a lifetime event!" The room fills with hovering grandparents, god parents, and balloons, flowers, Walgreen's checkout bags of diapers and baby hats and socks and onesies; packets of pacifiers—which Kira's going to need, because her parents surely did, Ken tells—and blankets and stuffed plushies and 5-hour energy drinks and two times the supplies they already have.

Names haven't been chosen yet, they inform. There are a few that are still up in the air but for the most part, the names Sawyer, Hanna, or Jhene are being tossed around for the girl; Lucas, Kai, or Gavin for the boy. There's a list Stiles pulls from the preparation bag they brought.

Malia is the first to speak up. "Not Gavin. That one's terrible."

Noshiko tells that Hana means flower in Japanese.

From bed, Kira watches the new grandparents bouncing the sleeping infants in their arms and marveling at the twins' hands. Noah and Ken are the obnoxious baby talking type. Noah mutters a joke about how he's been turned into a grandpa and is definitely getting old now, bouncing the baby girl.

Scott is taking selfies and photos of the newborns. "For Facebook memories," he says. Most will be posted later to the parents' Instagram.

Lydia is at Kira's side. She's the one who points out Scott's fondness over children, looking over in time to catch him give Stiles a heavy pat on the back, smiling with all teeth. It's genuine and proud. Lydia's attention swings to Malia watching from afar.

Ken and Noshiko huddle over the baby boy. Malia watches from afar.

Kira is nodding off to sleep when Stiles is inquired by a nurse to come along to have his hand inspected.

Years ago, she had been prepared to accept that she had been one of those with a mark but without a match—she kicks herself for it now.

Hearing sniffling, Kira asks if Lydia is "alright?"

The strawberry blonde chides "of course I am. But it's about you today, boo. You must be tired."

Kira nods, eyes heavy.

Lydia pets her hair as Kira nods off to sleep.

Two foxes have just become four.

**Author's Note:**

> Please **comment** and leave kudos if you like it.


End file.
